House Armed Services Committee: Skelton Statement on Joint Strike Fighter/F-35 Competitive Engine

February 25, 2010 by Jeffrey Bradford · Comment
Filed under: Syndicated Industry News

House Armed Services Committee: Skelton Statement on Joint Strike Fighter/F-35 Competitive Engine
House Armed Services Committee
February 25, 2010

Skelton Statement on Joint Strike Fighter/F-35 Competitive Engine

Washington, D.C. – House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) released the following statement on the Department of Defense’s update of the Joint Strike Fighter/F-35 competitive engine cost-benefit analysis:

“Yesterday, I was finally provided with a copy of the ‘business case’ upon which Secretary Gates based his decision to oppose the development of the competitive engine for the F-35. While the committee is still reviewing the analysis, it appears that the Department’s approach focuses on near-term costs to the exclusion of what the committee sees as the long-term benefits of this program. The costs of the second engine in the next few years must be balanced against the fact that life-cycle costs of having two engines are comparable to having only one. The Department’s analysis does not consider the risk that a single engine would present not only to our fighter force, but to our national security, given that the F-35 will account for 95 percent of our nation’s fighter fleet. With this program, as with all others, we cannot use near-sighted vision when long-term security is at stake. I look forward to continuing the dialogue on this program with my colleagues and the Department of Defense. But I remain unconvinced that terminating the alternate engine program makes sense.”

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F-35 Lightning II, HASC (House Armed Services Committee), JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) Program

Tags: armed services committee, business case, cost benefit analysis, Defense Industrial Base, Department of Defense, hasc, house armed services committee, ike skelton, joint strike fighter, joint strike fighter program, long term security

HASC Wants To Continue VH-71

June 19, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Congress, Countries, Department of Defense, Events, Federal Budget Process, Finemeccanica, Italy, Lockheed Martin, Military Aviation, Services, U.S. Navy, development program

In their markup of the 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill the House Armed Services Committee added money for continued production of the F-22. It also recommended that the Navy and Defense Department continue production of the Increment One of the VH-71 New Presidential Helicopter.

They feel that this would be the best use of the over $3 billion already spent on the program. There is obviously still a requirement for this aircraft and a new program is planned. The HASC wants the first group of VH-71 to be used as “the normal transport for the President…” with other systems looked at for the more stringent requirements. Right now the President uses VH-3 for short range, normal duties and then longer ranged CH-53 and UH-60 for other missions. One of the problems faced by the VH-71 was the attempt to buy one aircraft to do all missions.

Finemeccanica had offered to just deliver Increment One aircraft at reduced price for the total program. Of course these did not meet all of the requirements that the Navy had levied. This was a major reason the program’s cost and schedule increased so much.

So far the HASC markup does not necessarily agree with the Obama Administration’s proposals in the area of the F-22 or the VH-71. The bill still needs to go through the process of other committee markups, the full House and Senate and then the Conference. This means that this language may or not make it to the final version but it does show support for the VH-71 program.

Tags: armed services committee, ch 53, committee markups, defense appropriations bill, full house, hasc, house armed services committee, increment, markup, missions, money, new presidential helicopter, obama, proposals, senate, stringent requirements, U.S. Navy, uh, vh

HASC to ask GAO to investigate protests

May 19, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Congress, Contract Awards, Editorial, Federal Budget Process, GAO, Protest

As part of their work on the defense budget the HASC is going to ask the GAO to investigate whether there are too many protests. See the story here. As we have previously discussed ad nauseum there is little disincentive for a losing contractor to protest. At the best they win, and the worst they lose but it takes little time and money to cut the necessary legal documents and fax them in. With the number of large contracts declining, and their worth growing, there will continue to be protests as the various contracts awarded. It has not just been for large development and procurement contracts, there have been protests of service ones as well. The GAO dismisses most of the protests as it takes a really big screw up by the acquisition and contract people to uphold them, but the delay the programs and cost the winner and the government time and money. Since the right to protest is pretty much part of Federal contract law it will be hard to change the number without changing that, unless the Congress wants to start punishing for frivolous protests. That is not common in American legal tradition, but we will see.

Tags: acquisition, ad nauseum, Congress, defense budget, federal contract law, gao, government time, hasc, legal tradition, little time, necessary legal documents, procurement contracts, protests, screw, time and money